The fall of Al-Bashir, the arrest of Assange, and the dust-up with Morocco

It started off all hunky-dory but ended in disaster. For seven years, Julian Assange took refuge in a small office that was converted into a bedroom in Ecuador’s embassy in an upmarket neighbourhood of central London, where he lived with his cat, James. It had a bed, sun lamp, computer, kitchenette, shower and treadmill.

During his time there, the 47-year-old WikiLeaks co-founder welcomed guests such as Lady Gaga and Pamela Anderson and, from a tiny balcony, addressed supporters and held news conferences.

When Assange was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph via Skype a year into his confinement, the Australian painted a fairly rosy picture of life inside the embassy.

Assange said staff members were “like family” despite the “difficult” situation. He was also granted Ecuadorian citizenship.

“We have lunch together, celebrate people’s birthdays and other details I don’t want to go into because of the security situation," he told the newspaper.

But relations with Ecuador’s government worsened under President Lenín Moreno, who took office in 2017. This became clear last year when Assange was given a set of house rules, including paying for internet use, food and laundry, taking better care of his cat and keeping the bathroom clean.

Moreno accused him of “repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols”. He said Ecuador had “reached its limit” on Assange’s “discourteous and aggressive behaviour”.

More details emerged later when foreign minister José Valencia told Congress that Assange had been using a cellphone not registered with the embassy, repeatedly insulted the mission’s workers, reportedly calling them US spies, and damaged the facilities by riding his skateboard and playing football despite being told to stop.

Cleaning staff, Valencia said, had described “improper hygienic conduct” throughout Assange’s stay, an issue that a lawyer had attributed to “stomach problems”. An unnamed Ecuadorean official told AP news agency that other issues included “weeks without a shower” and a “dental problem born of poor hygiene”.

This wasn’t the first time Assange’s hygiene has been called into question.

In 2011, the former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, wrote about the paper’s first collaboration with Assange and WikiLeaks, including their first meeting.

“He was alert but dishevelled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-coloured sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles,” Keller wrote. “He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in days.”

Interior minister María Paula Romo complained that Assange had been allowed to do things like “put faeces on the walls of the embassy and other behaviours of that nature”, although Vaughan Smith, a friend who visited Assange last week, told Reuters that he believed this claim was false.

Moreno, who ordered Assange to cut back his online activity soon after taking office, also said Assange had “violated the norm of not intervening in the internal affairs of other states”, most recently in January 2019 when WikiLeaks released documents from the Vatican.

He said that and other cases confirmed suspicions that Assange was still linked to WikiLeaks. The president also accused Assange of having installed forbidden “electronic and distortion equipment” and of accessing the embassy’s security files.

There was also the suspicion that WikiLeaks was linked to an anonymous website which said the president’s brother had created an offshore company — the material included private pictures of Moreno and his family.

The whistle-blower also allegedly played loud music and deliberately blocked security cameras.

This week, after seven years inside the confines of the embassy, the WikiLeaks founder was dragged away by police officers looking haggard, tired and clearly aged. The romance was irretrievably broken.